X.
CYRILLA's solicitude for me extends beyond the commonplaces of
hygiene and diet into the uncertain domain of matters ghostly.
She fears much that something might happen to me through the
agency of wizards, witches (sociès), or zombis. Especially
zombis. Cyrillia's belief in zombis has a solidity that renders
argument out of the question. This belief is part of her inner
nature,—something hereditary, racial, ancient as Africa, as
characteristic of her people as the love of rhythms and melodies
totally different from our own musical conceptions, but
possessing, even for the civilized, an inexplicable emotional
charm.
Zombi!—the word is perhaps full of mystery even for those who
made it. The explanations of those who utter it most often are
never quite lucid: it seems to convey ideas darkly impossible to
define,—fancies belonging to the mind of another race and
another era,—unspeakably old. Perhaps the word in our own
language which offers the best analogy is "goblin": yet the one
is not fully translated by the other. Both have, however, one
common ground on which they become indistinguishable,—that
region of the supernatural which is most primitive and most
vague; and the closest relation between the savage and the
civilized fancy may be found in the fears which we call
childish,—of darkness, shadows, and things dreamed. One form of
the zombi-belief—akin to certain ghostly superstitions held by
various primitive races—would seem to have been suggested by
nightmare,—that form of nightmare in which familiar persons
become slowly and hideously
transformed into malevolent beings.
The
zombi deludes under the appearance of a travelling companion,
an old comrade—like the desert spirits of the Arabs—or even
under the form of an animal. Consequently the creole negro fears
everything living which he meets after dark upon a lonely road,—
a stray horse, a cow, even a dog; and mothers quell the
naughtiness of their children by the threat of summoning a zombi-cat
or a zombi-creature of some kind. "
Zombi ké nana ou" (the
zombi will gobble thee up) is generally an effectual menace in
the country parts, where it is believed zombis may be met with
any time after sunset. In the city it is thought that their
regular hours are between two and four o'clock in the morning.
At least so Cyrillia says:—
—"Dèezhè, toua-zhè-matin: c'est lhè zombi. Yo ka sóti dèzhè,
toua zhè: c'est lhè yo. A quattrhè yo ka rentré;—angelus ka
sonné." (At four o'clock they go back where they came from,
before the Angelus rings.) Why?
—"C'est pou moune pas joinne yo dans larue." (So that people may
not meet with them in the street), Cyrillia answers.
—"Are they afraid of the people, Cyrillia ?" I asked.
—"No, they are not afraid; but they do not want people to know
their business" (pa lè moune ouè zaffai yo).
Cyrillia also says one must not look out of the window when a
dog howls at night. Such a dog may be a mauvais vivant (evil
being): "If he sees me looking at him he will say, 'Ou tropp
quirièse quittée cabane ou pou gàdé zaffai lezautt.'" (You are too
curious to leave your bed like that to look at other folks'
business.)
—"And what then, Cyrillia?"
—"Then he will put out your eyes,—y ké coqui zié ou,—make you
blind."
—"But, Cyrillia," I asked one day, "did you ever see any
zombis?"
—"How? I often see them! … They walk about the room at night;
—they walk like people. They sit in the rocking-chairs and rock
themselves very softly, and look at me. I say to them:—'What do
you want here?—I never did any harm to anybody. Go away!' Then
they go away."
—"What do they look like?"
—"Like people,—sometimes like beautiful people (bel moune). I
am afraid of them. I only see them when there is no light
burning. While the lamp bums before the Virgin they do not come.
But sometimes the oil fails, and the light dies."
In my own room there are dried palm leaves and some withered
flowers fastened to the wall. Cyrillia put them there. They
were taken from the reposoirs (temporary altars) erected for the
last Corpus Christi procession: consequently they are blessed,
and ought to keep the zombis away. That is why they are fastened
to the wall, over my bed.
Nobody could be kinder to animals than Cyrillia usually shows
herself to be: all the domestic animals in the neighborhood
impose upon her;—various dogs and cats steal from her
impudently, without the least fear of being beaten. I was
therefore very much surprised to see her one evening catch a
flying beetle that approached the light, and deliberately put its
head in the candle-flame. When I asked her how she could be so
cruel, she replied:—
—"Ah ou pa connaitt choïe pays-ci." (You do not know Things
in this country.)
The Things thus referred to I found to be supernatural Things.
It is popularly believed that certain winged creatures which
circle about candles at night may be engagés or envoyés—wicked
people having the power of transformation, or even zombis "sent"
by witches or wizards to do harm. "There was a woman at
Tricolore,"
Cyrillia says, "who used to sew a great deal at night;
and a big beetle used to come into her room and fly about the candle, and
and bother her very much. One night she managed to get hold of it,
and she singed its head in the candle. Next day, a woman who
was her neighbor came to the house with her head all tied up.
'
Ah! macoumè,' asked the sewing-woman, '
ça ou ni dans guiôle-ou?'
And the other answered, very angrily, '
Ou ni toupet mandé moin ça
moin ni dans guiôle moin!—et cété ou qui té brilé guiôle moin
nans chandelle-ou hiè-souè.'" (You have the impudence to ask what
is the matter with my mouth! and you yourself burned my mouth in
your candle last night.)
Early one morning, about five o'clock, Cyrillia, opening the
front door, saw a huge crab walking down the street. Probably it
had escaped from some barrel; for it is customary here to keep
live crabs in barrels and fatten them,—feeding them with maize,
mangoes, and, above all, green peppers: nobody likes to cook
crabs as soon as caught; for they may have been eating manchineel
apples at the river-mouths. Cyrillia uttered a cry of dismay on
seeing that crab; then I heard her talking to herself:—"I touch
it?—never! it can go about its business. How do I know it is
not an arranged crab (yon crabe rangé), or an envoyé?—since
everybody knows I like crabs. For two sous I can buy a fine crab
and know where it comes from." The crab went on down the street:
everywhere the sight of it created consternation; nobody dared
to touch it; women cried out at it, "Miserabe!—envoyé Satan!—
allez, maudi!"—some threw holy water on the crab. Doubtless it
reached the sea in safety. In the evening Cyrillia said: "I
think that crab was a little zombi;—I am going to burn a light
all night to keep it from coming back."
Another day, while I was out, a negro to whom I had lent two
francs came to the house, and paid his debt.
Cyrillia told me when
I came back, and showed me the money carefully enveloped in a
piece of brown paper; but said I must not touch it,—she would
get rid of it for me at the market. I laughed at her fears; and
she observed: "You do not know negroes, Missié!—negroes are
wicked, negroes are jealous! I do not want you to touch that
money, because I have not a good opinion about this affair."
After I began to learn more of the underside of Martinique
life, I could understand the source and justification of many
similar superstitions in simple and uneducated minds. The negro
sorcerer is, at worst, only a poisoner; but he possesses a very
curious art which long defied serious investigation, and in the
beginning of the last century was attributed, even by whites, to
diabolical influence. In 1721, 1723, and 1725, several negroes
were burned alive at the stake as wizards in league with the
devil. It was an era of comparative ignorance; but even now
things are done which would astonish the most sceptical and
practical physician. For example, a laborer discharged from a
plantation vows vengeance; and the next morning the whole force
of hands—the entire atelier—are totally disabled from work.
Every man and woman on the place is unable to walk; everybody has
one or both legs frightfully swollen. Yo te ka pilé malifice:
they have trodden on a "malifice." What is the "malifice"? All
that can be ascertained is that certain little prickly seeds have
been scattered all over the ground, where the barefooted workers
are in the habit of passing. Ordinarily, treading on these seeds
is of no consequence; but it is evident in such a case that they
must have been prepared in a special way,—soaked in some poison,
perhaps snake-venom. At all events, the physician deems it
safest to treat the inflammations after the manner of snake
wounds; and after many days the hands are perhaps able to resume
duty.
